Julia Geer ~ The Future of Yoga: Balancing AI and Natural Intelligence

Julia Geer is a seasoned yoga therapist and Ayurvedic health counselor with a strong background in holistic health practices. She began her yoga journey in 1997 and has since become a certified yoga therapist recognized by the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Julia is also trained by renowned mindfulness teachers Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Beyond her expertise in yoga and Ayurveda, Julia has an undergrad degree in management and technology and brings unique insights to how artificial intelligence intersects with health and wellness. Her professional journey spans over 18 years in tech and healthcare, focusing on integrating AI technologies.

Visit her on her website: https://www.thegeershift.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Julia Geer’s transition from yoga enthusiast to a certified yoga therapist with a focus on holistic and integrative health.
• The distinctions between yoga, yoga therapeutics, and yoga therapy, and how these practices integrate into Western healthcare.
• The role of AI in healthcare and how yoga and Ayurveda can support practitioners in this transformative time.
• Practical applications of yoga therapy, such as aiding clients with chronic conditions like COPD.

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Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring Yoga, AI, and Natural Intelligence with Julia Geer
• 2:08 The Transformative Power of Yoga and Mindfulness Practices
• 3:43 Understanding Distinctions Between Yoga, Yoga Therapeutics, and Yoga Therapy
• 9:30 The Journey from Yoga Teacher to Yoga Therapist
• 11:02 Transformative Power of Yoga Therapy for COPD Patients
• 15:24 Integrating Yoga Therapy With Medical and Fitness Communities
• 21:51 Exploring the Five Koshas in Personalized Yoga Therapy
• 26:19 Ethics and Scope in Yoga Therapy Practice
• 29:58 Exploring Yoga Therapy Programs and Their Comprehensive Offerings
• 35:13 AI's Impact on Healthcare Efficiency and Human Error Reduction
• 43:20 Balancing Yoga and AI for Enhanced Mindfulness and Creativity
• 49:42 Navigating AI Ethics and Transparency in Content Creation
• 53:13 The Future of AI in Yoga and Human Interaction
• 58:16 The Impact of AI on SEO and Blogging
• 1:00:18 Leveraging AI for Creativity in Yoga and Cooking
• 1:02:22 Integrating AI Responsibly Into Business and Personal Growth

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, my special guest, Julia Geer. go to her website, thegeershift.com, her last name is G, E, E, R, so you can also follow on Instagram. At@thegeershift. She has a course that can help you implement AI in your yoga teaching and professional life. She today, we're going to cover topics around yoga, yoga therapeutics and yoga therapy. And we're also going to talk about some of the distinctions between alternative, sorry, artificial intelligence and natural intelligence and how Yoga and Ayurveda can help us navigate this incredible world. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I do and did. And remember, I have a new course that's totally free. It's called 8IN8. Learn 8 limb yoga in 8 days. And the link for that is in the description, totally free. Check it out. Give me some feedback. Let me know what you think. All right, let's start. I'm really delighted to have this chance to speak with Julia Geer and Julia, thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast. And how are you doing today? Thanks for inviting me, Todd. I'm also really excited to be here. I am doing great today. It's Thursday. I have family coming this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to some good quality time over the holidays. Amazing. You know, we niched out what we're going to talk about, and during this conversation, we're going to aim to talk about the distinctions between yoga, yoga therapeutics and yoga therapy. And then also one of your specialty, another one of your specialties that we're going to aim to philosophize about is the intersection between AI and natural intelligence, and how Yoga and Ayurveda can help us in this time of massive transformation. Now, on that note, I also want to bring up the fact that I was fortuitous enough to meet you because your parents were visiting here in Florida. You were or no, your parents live here in Florida, and you were visiting your parents from the West Coast of America and and I got a chance to meet you in person and find out this incredible history that you have in the world of yoga, in which case you were kind enough to say, I'd love to be on your podcast. And so with that being said, thank you so much for for joining me. Can you tell us a little bit me and us a little bit about your background in the world of yoga? Yeah, of course. So I took my first yoga class in 1997 now I was, I was actually rehabbing a shoulder surgery when I was in college as an athlete, and I took a yoga class, and I totally got hooked. I found that not only was my body, my actual physical body stronger and had more resilience than ever before, even even though I was training 20 hours a week, you know, in the traditional exercise. But I also noticed that my relationships were healthier, my grades were better. I found it, you know, I found it easy to just kind of go about so I I got really curious very early on about what else was happening other than, you know, these, these practices of of postures and a little bit of breathing and a little bit of sitting. And so I kept it as a tool like so immediately I knew it was helping with stress management and just life management in general. And I kept it as a tool for many, many years. And then in 2015 I got I got serious. 2014 2015 I got serious about the teacher role and deepening, deepening my own practice and knowledge and becoming a certified teacher. And that led me all the way. Through to becoming a certified yoga therapist, through the I A y t and a Ayurvedic health counselor as well. I never knew what Ayurveda was till, until about 15 years ago, and it just blew my mind. And then additionally, I have also been trained by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock in their mindfulness meditation or teacher certification program. And so it's this really cool trifecta, I would say, of these amazing ancient wisdom traditions, ancient wisdom practices that I have always been thinking about applying to more people, making them more accessible in our modern world. Nice. Can you tell me a little bit about then what you see some of the distinction between yoga yoga therapeutics and yoga therapy? Absolutely, and this is a really lively conversation right now in the world of yoga, and especially yoga, yoga therapeutics and yoga therapy as integrative health practices and holistic health is becoming more of a conversation here in the West, and a lot of my training stems from the kerpalu Center in West Stockbridge in Western Massachusetts, which has a long history of of one putting wonderful things in the world and excellence. And even at even at Kripalu, there's the school of yoga, the School of yoga therapy, in the School of yoga therapy, in which you can also become a therapeutic yoga teacher, and with this long history of yoga tradition at Kripalu, in this new kind of newer label of yoga therapy, there's a lot of you know, there's A lot of discussion, and I really see two very distinct two very distinct paths. And yes, all yoga can be therapeutic, absolutely, depending on what your intention is and what you're coming for. I believe that yoga as a trade, as a tradition in itself, of anyone showing up to your studio or anywhere on a path towards wellness, just general wellness, and potentially even enlightenment. And then yoga therapeutics and yoga therapy are then applied to therapeutics, to groups, therapy to the individual, for specific conditions that have specific wellness goals and objectives. Typically people have a Western diagnosis. And so there's many things that come along with that. And so the path of yoga therapy specifically is tailored toward that individual with a very comprehensive set of training and knowledge from the practitioner to be able to really holistically see and hold that person and support them on their path, and then the therapeutics fit really well in group settings, and you know, for people that are experiencing similar symptoms or challenges or something that's going on in their life, but there are three really distinct paths, and the path of Yoga Therapy specifically, is truly now part of many inter, Inter, multi disciplinary care teams in integrative wellness centers as a as an equal and important part of that care team. Amazing. Do you see these three? If we were to say there are three separate communities, are we all interacting kindly with each other, or are we having debates that I mean, is there any is there any reason why this doesn't all fit well together? I believe that there's some gaps in some gaps in understanding and some gaps in knowledge, especially especially what you know, what is the what is the difference? What is the actual difference for people that have not gone through a full yoga therapy training, and it's similar in when speaking with healthcare providers in the West, what it you know, like if a patient comes in for anxiety, say, the practitioner might have heard, oh, yoga is great for anxiety, and sending a person that's very anxious to a very hot yoga class could actually jack up the nervous system even more, right? Whereas, if they were. Were sent to yoga therapy, a yoga therapist would know exactly how to and what to do to care for that person that's experiencing symptoms of anxiety. That makes sense. I think that's a good example. And so having conversations like this, where you know, we can continue to open this conversation, I believe, is very, very important, because there's room for there's room for everybody, and there's room for all of us, and there's room for all of us to work together. And it doesn't need to be one without the other. It can be both at the same time. Yeah, good point. Like, like, maybe you go to just the hot yoga studio, but then there's another studio that's just a yoga therapy center. Do we see many hot yoga studios that also offer yoga therapy, or is it? Do you see them still see that it's very separated. It's specifically when we're talking about hot yoga, yeah, like we're trying to be diplomatic. We're trying to be diplomatic, yeah, because this is there a little bit in the hot yoga world where it's kind of like, just do the hot yoga class and it'll fix everything. And you and you're saying that, like, maybe with yoga therapy, there's like, like, a little more. I mean, I guess maybe there's a distinction between if I do a 200 hour yoga teacher training, and then I'm like, Cool, I'm a yoga teacher, and I got everything I need to know. I'm gonna go, boom. But as a yoga therapist, you've done a lot more training, isn't it somewhere between 500 to 1000 hours. It's yeah, so it's 800 it's 800 hours to 1000 hours. And in some cases, there are two university programs where it's a full two year master's degree. Wow. So yeah, so that that's not mainstreamed yet, but that gives people a really good idea of you truly went to get a master's in in this, as you would in other, you know, in other subjects, in other industries, yeah, whereas the 200 hour is sort of like the associate's degree, you know, like, yes, the associate's degree, it gets you started. It gets you with a foundational knowledge. But there is so much more, so much more to learn when you completed your 200 hour training. Did you launch into teaching at that point, or did you just decide at that point I would like to continue my education because I feel like I need to know more to be effective enough as a teacher. How did that play out for you? I did do some training, or I did do some teaching, general public, type of type of teaching, and I knew, I knew my path was in the therapeutic and the yoga therapy aspect of things, um, and even when I when I knew that I didn't really know, I didn't really know the full scope of what I was headed towards, just that something was really guiding me in that direction, and it was very strong, and I couldn't ignore not listening to it. And it was an, it was, and continues to be, an amazing body of work, body of knowledge and ability to offer services like this into the world. Nice. You said you love Ayurveda that was a game changer when you started to become aware of it and learn about it. Can you give me an example of a way that Ayurveda has improved your own life, even the foundations of deenacharya and ritacharya so the daily the daily routines and the seasonal routines and being able to use those to adjust your even your energy like even if you just think about Brahmacharya and energy management, using the those anchors of of what you can do on a daily basis and what you can do on a seasonal basis, so that you can continue to show up consistently with an with a grounded presence and an open heart in this very complicated world, has been absolutely transformational for me. Nice, that's cool. Can you give me an example of a application of yoga therapy that you've been able to apply to a student and or client, absolutely one of my favorite, one of my favorites is that I have a client with COPD who would who is in their 80s and has had really been struggling. And about a year ago, you know, heard about yoga therapy and started doing weekly just 30 minute sessions. So not even a, you know, not even a really long time, but 30 minute sessions. And at the time, was really struggling to walk. And do any real activities of daily living, outside the basics of eating, etc. And at the time, had also had to accept that golf, golf was probably no longer in the picture, which was a lifelong passion that sparked a lot of joy, and we started doing these 30 minute weekly yoga therapy sessions. And not only did things improve, he went to a regular three month checkup, and his tests were the best they had ever been in five years. And the only thing that he could point to that had changed was that he had started yoga therapy, and his healthcare provider was absolutely amazed. But nothing else had changed except starting yoga therapy, and in those sessions, you know, it's really focused on breathing some six rotations of the spine, joint mobility. You know, joint mobility. You know, some really simple practices that have had very, very powerful results. And this summer, this client started swimming in the pool. And we even talked about, you know, the linking breath to movement as a very important part for the nervous system. And so doing the elementary backstroke, inhaling up and out, and then exhaling down, inhaling up and out, exhaling down. And that has sparked also so much joy. And so it's one of my favorite stories, because these very simple practices can be so powerful and so meaningful in somebody's day to day. Yeah, great point. That's cool, yeah. And when you have a client that has a condition like COPD, with other, you know, with other health related complications, the training involved to really be able to appropriately know what the contraindications are, how to keep that client safe. What kinds of practices are going to be effective for that client? Are, you know, a whole treasure chest of information and training to be confident, both as a as a practitioner and also to allow that client to have trust in ability, in what it is that you're offering. What kind of shift Have you noticed in the relationship that you have with people in the medical field now that you are a certified yoga therapist? Have you noticed increase of respect for the work that you do? Have you noticed, oh, I doubt there'd be a decrease. But what type of rapport and or feedback are you receiving in your connection to working with people and attempting to be in line with the current medical field? Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, being able to partner with healthcare providers and educating them about the amount of training and the vigorousness of the training that goes into becoming a yoga therapist and the Western language really understands also things like, you know, bachelor degrees and master's degrees that, you know, that type of thing. And so being able to use that language, and then also pointing to the research, the research of yoga therapy, continues to be more and more robust, and that is also really helpful when speaking to Western healthcare providers, in helping them understand, especially when these practices are applied to specific conditions, specific health conditions. And so the and then the certification from a accrediting body is also and now there's a Board test. I was, I became a yoga therapist before the board exam became something. But now there's a board exam as well. And just just having that dialog and that conversation with healthcare providers really piques the interest and really gives them the confidence that the you know, the training and the care to make sure that this is a good compliment to what it is that they're providing in their own scope of practice, and how that can benefit the patients that they Have nice Have you been able to set up any sort of referral relationship with any medical professionals, in which case they're actually referring their clients to you? Yes, yes, and a combination of mental health care providers and also yoga. Specifically, yoga therapy has been shown as a also a wonderful non pharmacological approach to chronic pain management, and that is also an extremely needed and robust opportunity for anyone. And sometimes the chronic pain clinic is with mental health care providers, and sometimes they're specific pain clinics depending on the health care delivery system. And then, and then there's also, you know, some other areas of great interest and great opportunities, specifically for yoga therapy that I've seen either people that are mentored or students that other students have gone through a program is yoga therapy applied to oncology patients, yoga therapy applied to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and their caregivers as well, and then cardiovascular diseases. Amazing. Have you made any inroads with the yoga community that is a little bit more of like, say, the like kind of fitness yoga that we see, like, say, vinyasa flow and hot yoga and classes that are, I mean, I mean, I don't want to create any judgment on on any on one or the other there, because it's all an amazing field, right? But I'm just curious, have you made any inroads with some of those studios where they're also saying, like, maybe they have a client who comes in that says, I have this really terrible shoulder issue and and perhaps the teachers realizing all these chaturanga dandasana is all these low push up position for this person might not be good. Let me refer you to this yoga therapist who might be able to give you some different exercises that I'm not fully trained in. Has that happened at all? It has. It's not my specific area of focus, but there are many, many yoga therapists that exactly that. And typically it starts out with a yoga therapy or, sorry, a yoga student that has come up with an injury, whether it's hip, hip, knee, shoulder. Those are the big ones. Those are the big ones in the yoga world. Hip, knees, shoulders, yeah, sometimes some wrists and, and also, and, or they're, you know, they're aging a little bit, and they're prac, you know, their practice, they're noticing that their practice is not what it was 10 years ago or 15 years ago. And how do you keep yourself safe and in, you know, in a yoga class? And what does that look like in the body that you're in now? And those are typically, those are typically the the doors that open, another door that opens is many yoga studio owners that are, you know, that are burned out or overwhelmed, they will open themselves up to exploring yoga therapy. You know, what is the yoga therapy? And how can I? How can I benefit from that in order for my own wellness? And it's, it's not happening, you know, in the in the classes and and that those are sort of, those are doors that are opening. There is a big question about what's the difference between a very well trained private yoga instructor and a yoga therapist, and one of them is the process of of intake, because both of them are personalized, personalized practices, right? But the yoga therapy is, there's process of intake, and there's very specific wellness and goals and objectives that are set, not only for the the first session, but over over several sessions. And so you really are working towards something that is specific to health, and it doesn't necessarily need to be physical either. You know, we have the five koshas. We have the five koshas. And maybe something's going on in the mama maya kosher, maybe something's going on in the Pranamaya Kosha. It doesn't necessarily need to be the Annamaya Kosha to come to yoga therapy. On that note, just in case somebody listening has never heard the koshas. Can you name the five koshas in Sanskrit and then give the English equivalent? Absolutely. So the anamaya Kosha is the so there's five layers of being, as defined by the yoga philosophy. The anamaya Kosha is the physical body, the prana. Maya Kosha is the breath and energy body. The Mana. Maya Kosha is the emotional body. Viana Maya coast. Viana Maya Kosha is the thoughts and beliefs. So in like the mindfulness world, it's more of like what's the the chitchat? The, what are the beliefs? You know, what's, what's the default network doing? And then Ananda Maya Kosha, which is your interconnectedness with others, both other beings and other things in the world. Great. I like your short, concise and to the point definition, wonderful. Can you? Can you give me an idea of, like, how on that intake process? And so if you're keeping these five koshas in mind, for example, with the ANA, Maya, the food body, maybe we would like take a couple questions about, like, what their diet consists of currently, and then, in terms of, say, like, then covering that spectrum is, is there a protocol for trying to identify aspects of each of those five elements or coaches? There's a framework, there's a framework, and there's specifically this, the because it's personalized individual. You know, 95% of the time, unless you're in a class, there's a framework, but not a specific protocol, if that makes sense. And this has been, this has been a wonderful way to work within a framework. And yes, there's a series of questions during the intake, both assessment and also, also a conversation. And the assessment is actually looking at the body doing a breath assessment. You know, all the, all the little, subtle things that you that you see and you learn how to read people's affect, the prosody and tone of their voice. Are they making eye contact with you or not? You know all of these things are signals of what Kosha might be out of balance and which Kosha might be the doorway to bring everything back into balance. That's cool. You know, in the 200 hour yoga world, there's this ethics component, at least in relation to the yoga Alliance, that encourages students and or the teacher trainers to impart this concept that if we are working outside of our scope of practice, that we should refer our student and or the person that practices, when this to a professional, for example, somebody comes in says, I feel suicidal as a yoga teacher, that's not my scope of practice. Therefore, I could potentially refer them to a psychotherapist or someone of that professional credit credential as a yoga therapist, though it seems like you're somewhere in the middle, how do you know when to refer and how do you know when to take that on yourself with your practice tools? That's a great question, and I'm so glad you asked it, because scope of practice is also a really important part of the yoga therapist. And notice I'm using the word client, not patient, because technically they are not in our in our Western system. Anyway, they are. They're technically, we are technically not a licensed healthcare provider, so they are still clients. The perfect example of someone that is suicidal that would be a refer out. Or if you are working in a healthcare setting, when you are on a multidisciplinary care team where the person this, this client of yours, is a patient. They have a psychotherapist, maybe sometimes they have an eating disorder specialist, maybe they have a psychiatrist doing med management, you know, maybe they also have a surgeon, an oncologist. You know, there's, there's many different ways that that care team comes together, and it's very clear that this is what the scope is during yoga therapy, and this is what the scope is with your licensed healthcare providers. And like so for a client that's suicidal, for example, it's, it's out of it's out of scope for me to say, you don't need any other health care providers. I'll, you know, we'll just, we'll just, we'll just manage things through yoga therapy. No, the ethics is, and for me personally, unless you are seeing a licensed health care provider for your mental health condition. It's not safe for me to to also work with you, one on one. Yeah. And many times as well, we we converse with, you know, we converse with the healthcare providers. We get permission from the client. Obviously, I. Um, but the healthcare providers often welcome additional modalities and additional, you know, additional care to help support whoever, whoever the client or patient is nice. And that happens very often. And even though yoga therapy isn't required to do HIPAA patient privacy. Many infrastructures and systems that we have set up do follow HIPAA, and that also gives confidence to the healthcare providers that you know that that we are on the same path in that way. Gotcha, yeah, and that's not a system. That's that the a local yoga studio necessarily has the ability to hold Yeah, correct if say, for example, I'm I want to become a yoga therapist. Is there a specific school and or direction you would endorse for me to go. I'm sure there's a couple of different of really high end, wonderful programs, but if I'm a busy yoga teacher, I want to learn more. Is there an online program that you have either encountered yourself and or have heard is amazing that you would recommend that I check out. Yeah. So the first resource is on the I A y t website, International Association of yoga therapy I y t, they have a list of schools, a list of accredited schools, and all of those accredited schools have ensure competencies and making sure that you know the curriculum that is for students is appropriate and comprehensive enough, and the training is great, many of the schools are either offering a hybrid option now, where some of the learning is online and some of it is in person and or module. Some of the modules are online, some of the modules are in person, that that type of structure, the the the two masters programs that I mentioned. I guess I should go back and first say I'm biased. I think the Kripalu School of integrative yoga therapy is amazing. I chose it. I chose it for myself. I chose it for all the reasons. Of Kripalu is amazing place. They have a standard of excellence that has been, you know, decades now in the making. They have a wonderful school. Joseph Lillian LePage were the originators of the curriculum and the program, and even though they're not still formally part of it, they It is the spirit and the comprehensiveness and their heart is still absolutely part of it, and it's a wonderful, wonderful school and wonderful curriculum, very cool and and Kripalu has both some modules online and some modules in person. Maryland is Maryland University for Integrative Health is one of the call it was one of the master's degrees, as is Loyola Marymount in which is on the west coast. So you've got an East Coast no West Coast school, Phoenix Rising, which is based out of San Diego, is also a really wonderful yoga therapy program. And then after after that, look at the list, because there are new schools coming up, you know, there are new schools coming up and being accredited. And this is, you know, this is a formalized, a newer field. And there are more and more wonderful things happening every day. Nice, yeah. And before that, so one of the so kerpalu, the first 300 hours of the 800 hour is a 500 hour training. And after that, you become an advanced teacher of therapeutic yoga. And so that's also really great way to, even if you take the first foundations module, it's a great way to, you know, to get a little bit more information and some overview about what this yoga therapy and yoga therapeutic field is and the direction that it's going in. Nice I appreciate all that information Julia is. I'm I'm super curious myself. I've met a lot of great yoga therapists over the years, and so the more I keep hearing about the more I'm intrigued and and wanting to pursue it myself. Yeah, one of the great things is the comp, because I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because even myself, I've taken so many amazing you. Like special interest training, right? Like Judith Lasser is restorative yoga. And, I mean, just it's so, I mean, that's one that just came to mind. But so many special interest trainings, which is great, and many, many yoga teachers like or yoga studio owners like yourself, have done that type of thing. But the yoga therapy curriculums make sure that the comprehensiveness of the information that you get like there's no holes, and that's really difficult to do on your own with special interest training. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Julia, your website is the gear shift.com. Your last name is spelled G, E, G, E, R, right. So with pun intended, can we make a gear shift? I'm super curious about what your background is, prior to yoga in the world of technology, absolutely so perfect segue. Thank you. Perfect segue. All right, I actually, I did my undergrad in management and technology, and I had no idea what that was going to mean, but what it, you know, when I or what kind of path that would put me on, but I've always sort of had this, you know this wisdom tradition world and this tech you know this tech world all the way through my adult life, at least. And so in my tech world, the first 18 years were all in healthcare. And it happened that, you know, almost, almost all of those included technologies that were, you know, early artificial intelligence all the way through some of the, the first, you know, the first modern day FDA approved artificial intelligence technologies And I and and my roles were always commercial. So even though I was, I was in those were in those, uh, arenas. I was the the non tech, you know, the I was the non technical, or the I was the technical commercial person. And the, the funny part was, I was the non technical person on the team, always working with computer scientists, engineers, data scientists, etc, and I but I was really making sure that these technologies got adopted and that the lay person could understand what it is that they did, what they meant, and what the benefits were. Wow. So on that note, you're fluent in watching the evolution of artificial intelligence. From our previous conversation, prior to the podcast, you had made mention that you were you were seeing how AI was going to come into where it is now, before most people were wanting to acknowledge that that was true. Can you talk a little bit about what that what type of I don't want to say warnings, maybe the better word is, what type of advice you were giving some of these folks that were like, maybe in the healthcare world that were like, AI, come on, we're not going to be having computers and robots do what I do. I'm a human. Can you tell me, like, what that seemed like from your perspective? Absolutely, and such a good question. And the fears in healthcare were, were and are very similar to some of the fears that we're now seeing at as as artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence even is available at scale for the everyday consumer now. So you know, we're all humans use it. We're all humans using all these technologies. The healthcare applications were very specific, obviously, but the first thing was, the first thing was, especially, you know that when this, when there were technologies that had static algorithms where there was one algorithm, it did a specific job. It did things like assist in sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing cancer, for example, it automated some repetitive tasks, those types of you know that that allowed healthcare providers to be a little bit more efficient, those types of things. Those were all sort of the early, early artificial intelligence, and those are pretty straightforward, right? Like it's it's an Automator that doesn't change. And then when the when the our artificial intelligence got mature enough that it could start to continuously learn, and that's when a lot. Of questions really started to come up. First of all, there was infrastructure in place and economies at scale that made it cost effective to be able to do to use some of this technology, first in the healthcare setting and now for everyone. And it was then. It was then of, how do I how do I trust? How do I trust what it's, what it's doing, when it's when it's continuously learning. I want to know what kind of data it's been trained on, and I want to really understand how it's going to influence my decision making as a clinician. And even so, it's, it's still an assistant. It still has not, and will not for for, you know, will not, for a long time, actually take over. But if you think about some artificial intelligence, you know, like robotics and those types of technologies like those, have been coming up for decades now in the healthcare world. And I will say that you know one of the early AI conferences in healthcare. This was when the machine learning and deep learning technologies were first coming out. So we're going back to 2016 2015 2016 one of the leaders at one of the leaders of one of them famous, famous hospitals. He said, Look, don't be concerned about by the time you need to be concerned about AI taking over your job as a as a very highly trained, highly skilled healthcare professional. You need to be worried about what AI is doing in your life, but what is going to happen is that if you don't adopt this technology, the healthcare provider that does is going to be that much more efficient than you are, and you will then become irrelevant as a healthcare provider. And I know even that is controversial to say, especially in a world where Doctor visits are very short now, you know, and like, there's not like, where is the humanity still come into play in some of these things. And at the same time, there's a huge access problem, you know, or challenge with not enough healthcare providers for the number of patients that we have, and some of these technologies can really support making the system more efficient so that more people can get care. And that's really important. The other thing that it can really do is because it can process complex many disparate sources of data that are complex and impact decision making. It can be, it can be better than a human at being able to do that, and that is just a fact. You know, in some of the in some of the professions in medicine is like up to a 30% error rate, and that's human, right. Even even as a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, highly skilled, highly trained, very clear, brilliant clinician, sometimes you forget about a data point or sometimes a pattern that you're looking at. You know, you miss something, and that's a fact, and the computers will not miss that with this generative technology, and that's going to impact safety for patients, which is really exciting. That's so fascinating. I'm curious. So like, I remember the first time I was speaking with somebody that was interacting with a hospital locally where he started talking about the way AI was being implemented. And this is about, I guess you're probably right, like 2016 ish. And my first thought was, like, what you said, Oh no, the humanity, what's gonna happen? And and then, but like you said, the ability to compile information and come out with a conclusion and or a statement based off so many different variables that it actually was more efficient than human so the first time I heard that, I was like, No way, like, I couldn't even believe it. But now it's pretty obvious that that that's quite true as a yoga practitioner, I feel like I used to fantasize about the days of old, of like a yogi or a yogini, or a person who practiced yoga sitting in a cave and just contemplating the life's mysteries and just living this really simple life and now a modern day yoga we are both you and I, and I'm sure a lot of you listening are modern day practitioners and yogis. Do we? Do we've do we? We obviously need to, want to, or we, I'm thinking, you're thinking, we. Probably want to implement AI as a yoga teacher and a yoga professional. But are we, are we losing yoga in the process? Or, how can AI help us gain better yoga? I don't even know if that makes sense. Does Did that make sense? That does make sense, and I love that you drew this question, and it's something that I've been thinking about for a lot, you know, and almost for a really long time, because these two pair, I've had these two parallel paths for so long, and the society that we live in today has technology. We are in relationship with technology in some way, and we have control of what that relationship looks like. You know? I mean, we really do. We have, we have control over the knowledge of how these systems and these technologies are working. We have control over, as adults at least, of how we're going to interact with that technology, and defining that relationship is is really important. The other thing that's really important, where Yoga and Ayurveda and mindfulness can really help us, is make sure that the stimulus is balanced between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence. And what's like if you think about, if you think about, how could artificial intelligence create space in my day so that I can sit and that it's so that I have an extra 1520 minutes to meditate, or so that I have an extra 30 minutes or an hour to go for a walk in nature so that I can fill myself up with the natural stimulus that helps my body stay in homeostasis. Those are types of things that are really exciting. The other, the other ways that I really feel that Yoga and Ayurveda can really support is that I see that critical thinking, creativity and discernment are going to continue to be very, very, very important. Skills as humans as we are interacting with all of these technologies, critical thinking in the way that you interact and prompt and be in relationship, having those critical thinking skills are really important. In order to be good at critical thinking. You need to have clear head. You need to have sound mind and body. The creativity we we have so much amazing research now about how these practices can open up our synapses for creativity, and the way you do that is not actually at the computer, but you know, either in nature, inspiring awe, doing practices, doing practices like creative vinasa flows, etc, that really kind of get those, those juices going, and then you sit down and you have better ideas to work with artificial intelligence on. And then the last is discernment. And for the for your Samkhya philosopher is Saskia. Samkhya philosophy lovers that are a part of your listeners, like the concept of booty, and you know that discernment and that really important connection to self, to take what the artificial intelligence suggests or is telling you, and have the discernment to say, yes, no, yes, no, that you know, or that doesn't it for me, or the way that that came, that was that was written, is not aligned, you know, with With how I feel, and be able to trust that and be clear about that and and be connected to your intuition and your natural intelligence. Those are going to be very, very, very important skills as artificial intelligence technologies continue to be more and more a part of our lives. Oh, that brings up so many thoughts and ideas. I mean, it sounds like everything you laid out just now is along the lines of artificial intelligence is an amazingly powerful tool that also could cause a lot of confusion and maybe overrun our life in some way shape or form, and that yoga would serve as some way to stay clear amongst this very challenging to know what's real and what's not, I guess it opens up a lot of questions along the line of like, I guess so I see that. Is like yoga, then would serve as a balancing tool to be able to handle the artificial side of things. Do you see any place or time where artificial intelligence will intersect with the yoga beyond content creation? Because, like right now, I so like on YouTube, if I go, when I go to publish this video for the podcast, YouTube has added a new button that says, Did you use artificial intelligence and the creation of the content via like, is the imagery that the person watching? Is it fake? Is it like made up? Is it like, I mean, and it's getting so good, I have a hard time really even picking apart what's actually a real image that someone took with a photo, versus, like something that I talked into and said, create a mountain with a girl standing in front of it with a flower in her hair. Like it's so hard sometimes to see that. So I get it, why the social media companies are saying here, let people know that some sort of artificial has been used, and this is not all just natural, but then at the same time, I'm like, where do we draw that line? Because, I mean, is, I'm using zoom, which kind of is integrated with artificial intelligence. I'm using platforms that help me to compile the information from my blog post, which is a form of an artificial intelligence. I mean, I am using a lot of artificial intelligence just in the creation of this episode. So it's like, I'm off from wondering where, when do I check that box, and when do I don't like because it's getting so intermeshed in all of the work that I do. So I'm just wondering, oh, I guess, out of everything, I just said, what popped into your head? Two things popped into my head. The first is, again, your What are, what are your intentions, what are your own morals and ethics and values, and being very clear about those in order to make these decisions and then, and admittedly, on this topic, the laws have not caught up with the technology right now. And that's a fact. You know, the laws, the laws are we gonna see a change in that ratio? Do you think the laws could catch up, or is our AI so much more powerful and faster than the lot than humans, that we could even create the laws to catch up. I know that there's, I know that there's a lot of attention and a lot of discussion about this, and there are some really wonderful conversations going on. How fast it will happen? We don't know. And in that, you know, in that gap, but between when there are things in place for and now that's also why it's really important for you as a human to be, you know, to be situated in yourself, to be grounded in, you know, what's okay with you and what PRI you know, what privacy settings are you putting on you, on your usage and your your honesty? About, yes, this was created by a and I, and so the the question about, so then the the question about AI is a spectrum of like, when do I do it? When do I not? First of all, you listen to your intuition about when is, when it's right and when it's not. Another guideline is, did AI create this without any interaction with me at all? Yeah, like this conversation, the answer is, is absolutely yes, yes, all of the things that you said, though, like yes, in the even in this podcast, AI is creating things in the background. It's maybe like your personal assistant and giving you, giving you some key ideas of this might help, or that might help. But at the end of the day, you're still the editor. You're the, you know, you're the you're the person that has the final say, Yeah, and when, when that's the case, then you are still an active participant in the process of whatever it is that you're creating. Yeah, this question might sound out there, but maybe in your world, it's not that out there. So in the recent release of Elon Musk's robots, do you see a future where we want you or I would walk into a class and the robot is either in the class with us. I don't see the reason why the robot would be taking yoga. I'm the crazy thing is, I saw videos of Elon's robots actually practicing yoga, like doing yoga poses, and I was like, Oh my gosh, because, like, I've as a massage therapist and yoga teacher, I thought, well, one that's cool thing about AI, it'll never take away my job. Like I just can't imagine a robot's gonna be able to use its claws or its fingers or whatever it has for its palpatory skill is gonna replace a human's palpatory skill. But then, the more we go down this track, I'm starting. Go, oh, maybe I was wrong. Like, maybe one day I'll be walking, or I might actually have a robot. This is totally crazy. I would never do this, but I'll have a robot standing in front of the room and saying, welcome Julia to the class today, with my voice sounding just like me, and going, Okay, let's begin. Let's begin with a Surya Namaskar. A raise your arms above your head and exhale. I mean, is that totally sci fi, or do you think it's going to get integrated into our lives? Where it's going to become that that interesting, where the where I believe the robots will be really helpful is places where there are shortages, either shortages of of humans to be able to carry out tasks, and or places where it's really unsafe for humans to be in specific to a yoga class. As a human, would you want to go to a robot? No, like I don't. I don't. I'm too sci fi uptake of robot led yoga classes because he at the, you know, because, if you think about a robot as like a virtual stand in, right, like a virtual a replacement for a human, part of what you love about even, I would say even, probably the teachers on your roster, people go to different, you know, people love different teachers for that unspeakable thing. You know that that's that is not going to go away like we're still biological. You know, humans that that are looking for stimulus from other biological humans. I'm terrified about virtual companions. I'm terrified about this. You know, there are robots being made to be virtual companions, and I mean, but this has been in development for at least a decade, if not two, and that's terrifying, and it may help with some of the, you know, with some of the epidemic of loneliness, in situations where people are isolated and they don't have any other options, you know? And so it's really a balance of what is the what is the purpose, and what is, what is the gap? But I'm, I'm pro human, even though I'm an I love technology, and I think it can really enable us in amazing ways. I am also absolutely pro human, and hope that also the yoga teacher doesn't get replaced by a robot. Agreed, I'm super optimistic as well, that that we will like what you're stating or postulating, that will maintain control over it, and it'll just help us. I do think, like, in terms of, say, like memory care in adult and in aging and in assisted living facilities, that if there aren't enough people to help that, that there will be, like, some great things could come out of this, in relation to, like you said, medical care, it's going to be amazing to watch. So then, are you as a yoga teacher and as a yoga therapist? What AI tools are you using? Like, do you if someone comes to you and say, I have COPD, are you going I'm now, obviously you're doing research. Now, one thing, I'm sorry, I'm going to change subject. Change subject a little bit, stay on subject, but I'm curious what your thoughts are. I remember somebody said to me that, like, if you and I had a blog, and we've been blogging all these years, and we hope that through our blogging, through our search engine optimization, that our blog would appear at the top of the Google search. And now I remember someone like, not even that long ago, like maybe six or eight months ago goes, guess what? They're going to start doing this AI thing where, when you ask a question in Google, your blog won't actually compete so much for the top. There's still SEO below, but now the AI is answering the question for me. So all that work that people have put into trying to attract traffic through their hard work of writing on sites will become obsolete. What is your thought on that? There? There that shift is definitely occurring. It's already happened, right? I know, yeah, so fast. The concept of search engine is definitely evolving with AI and, for instance, Google. So Google is a perfect example of they have their own learning language model, and they have a search engine. And open AI just announced a search engine as well. And these things are going to come together. And if you've noticed, you know, because I'm still absolutely go Google searching and then asking, you know, and then asking the language model things, and it is the difference in the answers that you get is really unbelievable. That being said, there's still, you know, there's bricks and mortar businesses there, you know, there's things that you want to look at on. Apps, you know, those types of things, the presentation of the information is going to definitely shift for the as a yoga therapist for for instance, Google specifically, has always been really good at search and always been really good at scientific information, and so to look up a disease state, for example, like COPD, Google is one of the Google is my go to for that, and the Google AI specifically Gemini is my go to for that. I use other language models for other different things. I have many technologies like zoom that, like Calendly that automate repetitive tasks. I also have one for like things like business expenses and accounting and stuff like that that aren't only automating tasks now, but also generating insights into, like, financial management planning and that kind of thing. I I love using chat, G, P, T, in the kitchen. It's like my secret, secret weapon as a chef now, for recipes, for recipes and, or, I've got these five ingredients, what, you know, giving you four or five ideas, or, or, or like, and this is an example I've used before for, you know, if you're trying to do about pacifying diet, for example, you know, and I have these three choices of foods, what would be, you know, what would be supportive? And if you've set up a like, a custom GPT that is an Ayurveda expert, for example, you can ask it, and it will, it will help you. You know, in those times, which is really cool, yeah, are you seeing? I mean, I would imagine the creativity from a yoga teacher in relation to creating vinyasa flow sequences are still coming from natural intelligence. Have you heard anybody going in and saying, create my class for today? I'll have 10 people aged 30 to 50, and give me a 20 pose sequence. I haven't even tried that myself. It just made me think of that. But yeah, the answer is yes, and it's a great brainstormer in those ways. My recommendation is don't take, don't take just what it says, because, you know, you know the little nuances of your you know of your students, and maybe you know that you're in Florida and what the season is, and you know all the little things that you could prompt, but it would just, it's not worth it, but it's a great brainstorm where it might come up with A idea, or, you know, you know, three asanas that you wouldn't have put in that sequence. And you thought, Oh, that's really cool. And that's a good example of like, use it as a collaborator, and, and, and it will also increase your own creativity. And I hear that a lot too. That's cool. As we get closer to closing our conversation, Julia, can you tell me about the course that you offer, because you do coach people in the yoga world in ways to start to become acquainted with AI and use it in a responsible and healthy way. Can you talk a little bit about the course that you have put together? Absolutely so get started with AI is the perfect place to start for people that are confused, overwhelmed, not sure where to start, and it goes through all the foundational skills to be able to start thinking about AI, like knowing about AI, because one of the part of the fear is there's a massive education gap. This didn't exist, you know, and it definitely didn't exist for the masses, and now it's everywhere. So what was the key information that you need to know? And then some core skills, and then for aspiring entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, small business owners, one time a year, which you'll see in the early spring, is amplify with AI, which is directed at applying AI specifically to your business. Nice. And that's the course you're currently working on. Get started. Is get started, is out. And then I did do amplify with AI in the spring. Oh, I see. And it was wonderful. And what I noticed was, like learning AI in week one and then applying it to your business, and we too it's too big of a learning curve. And so that's where get started. Really came from. Is, you know, so Can people can start learning it, start trusting it, start iterating with it, and then amplify will be is focused on best practices in business and in the modern world, integrating AI into your business so that you have more time to do the things that you really love to do amazing. Julia, I love how you've been able to bring two what seemed disparent career paths into harmony, and that's really amazing. I love that skill that we have as humans to like kind of. To take what we've learned and grow and do something different, and then bring them together, and you've done an amazing job of that. I really appreciate your intellect and everything that you've you bring to the table. Here is thank you so much, and I'm super passionate about it, because it can be an enabler, you know. And like conscious entrepreneurs are doing such amazing, wonderful things in the world, and this can really enable and amplify all those wonderful things that they're doing. I agree. I have to admit, I'm loving using all these tools with with this show, to be honest. So Julie, is there any sort of is there a closing statement? Do you have it or an opening statement and opening as we close the door, do you need to open something else? Open our minds to something else before we go? Learn to live in a world with AI and it is possible to keep your humanity in the process. I love it. Thank you so much, Julia. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. I hope next time you're in Florida visiting your folks, I'll get a chance to see you again. It's absolutely it's now a must do. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course, you the native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time you.